At 17:49 11/26/96, Christopher Bair wrote:
As a previously published author, I do know a bit about American and
international copyright laws. The true meaning of "Copyright" is the
person who owns this copyright, having all rights to the works protected
by said copyright, against all commercial means of reprocessing,
showing, displaying, copying, selling, distributing, etc., of the item
or items protected. In other words, the work or works are uncopyable by
law.
So, in essence, ANYONE may write any story using any characters, even
those designated as registered trademarks, and may distribute it freely,
as long as the properties of the story is as follows:
Anou... there are some CRITICAL errors here...
The first being that if the owner of the copyrighted and/or trademarked
character can show that your fic/book/whatever has damaged the
marketability or the value of their copyright, they can cook your ass with
gravy. Money will NEVER come into it - at least, not whether you are
making any or not.
1) No one handling this transfer/distribution is making a profit, or
even collecting money of any kind, including paying for the materials
and labor for the distribution. This means that you may write a novel of
Ranma 1/2, and may publish it, but you must do so by giving them away.
The moment you make a penny off of the novel, you have just infringed on
the copyright owned by the entities who own Ranma 1/2.
Point One: Writing and distribution still constitute infringement - but
doing so for free limits in effect the force of any legal claim for damages
- you are NOT getting money that the legitimate owner of the characters
would otherwise have gotten.
2) You so designate any and all entities who own these copyrights and
trademarks, and do so so that it sounds as though they own the
copyrights and trademarks, and that you do not. This means that you may
say "Ranma 1/2: A Tale of Tomorrow" by Christopher Bair, but you must
then designate that the story is owned by Takahashi Rumiko. You simply
wrote the tale, not the characters or depictions.
Point Two: This is accurate as far as it goes - point three clrifies nicely.
3) You may never place your own copyright on any work that you use
someone else's copyright or trademark on. Therefore, if you write a
Ranma 1/2 story, you cannot copyright it. However, there is a loophole
in the copyright laws, stating that even though someone owns the
copyrights or trademarks, you may still copyright the method with which
you told the tale.
This means that you may write a Ranma 1/2 story, say you wrote it,
designate that Takahashi Rumiko owns the characters and the
trademarks/copyrights, but that the depictions carried within the story
are copyright YOU!
You *can* copyright the *story* - but you cannot *own* it - this gets
complicated fast - but the bottom line is that when you use someone else's
characters, you may have the copyright on the story, but they own the basis
for the story - and the elements that make that story work - namely, the
characters. You cannot do anything with that copyright without making
arrangements with the owner of the copyrighted characters that you have
used - for a variety of reasons, securing those arrangements is unlikely in
the extreme, so while attaching a notice that the story is your is good
practice, it is also meaningless.
4) Finally, this is not part of the law that I am aware of, but you
should, out of courtesy, plug the owners of the copyrights. I.E., say
that you can find out more about Ranma 1/2 by contacting Viz
Communications . . . Etc.
Yes. This is true. It is NOT part of the law, and it IS a courteous thing
to do.
And, now, onto video and movie public displays:
NO, you may never EVER show any movie or video which is copyrighted in
public. Disney nearly sued video rental companies because of this a few
years ago. Even if you show them for free, the companies lose money
because, well, you are showing these shows for free.
Incorrect. A waiver or other permission is required, but they are not hard
to get. They may be *expensive* - but in the case of the Anime companies
in the US, the promotional considerations usually will net you permissions
at no cost, as long as you are polite about it.
Disney, as a company, is one of the snottiest buch of bastards that ever
walked the Earth. But they do good work, and are justifyably paranoid
about it. <<shrug>> Be nice, and they will - usually.
So, the constituents of any and all international and American copyright
laws state that any showings of any copyrighted videos, movies, etc.,
including free ones, without the permission of the owners of the
copyrights, is prohibited, and you could be jailed and/or fined for
doing so. Most anime clubs do have non-profit releases, stating that
they are showing the videos and movies as a non-profit organization.
KEY WORDS - "without the permission of the owners..." Remember them.
Ask for permission, and get it, and you have NO problems.
As to how you can get one of the releases, I do not know. But, if you
wish to show any free screenings, or fund-raising screenings, the best
thing to do is to write to the address of the company who distributed
the video.
Yes. Just talk to the people - the Anime companies are small enough that
they can be very easy and very pleasant to deal with. As long as you
remember to be polite, and respect their rights/interests.
I do have, on file somewhere, the addresses of some of the companies in
America to write to for this information. For Pioneer, you can also
contact their main number for information.
It is: (213) PIONEER.
Does this help any?
^_^
Thanks,
Christopher Bair
caern3@cris.com
http://www.concentric.net/~caern3/
Zen the Heretic-